


Rampant

by puckity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M, Non-Consensual Bondage, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Rape, Sexual Torture, Sibling Incest, Wincest (Non-Explicit)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-26
Updated: 2006-03-26
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:18:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckity/pseuds/puckity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened to Sam between Alvin Jenkins’ disappearance and Dean’s arrival is the stuff of nightmares, and it haunts both him and Dean long after Hibbing has left their rearview mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rampant

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2006; my first SPN fic. 
> 
> This fic contains graphic descriptions of a rape. I strove to treat the subject realistically without being exploitative. That said, this fic is not for everyone. If you do not feel you can handle the themes, please do not read it.
> 
> Beta'd by Rachel.
> 
> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](http://puckity.tumblr.com/).

Nine days later and 1300 miles away, Dean lay awake in his motel bed and listened as it all started again.

\---

The world was bright when Sam’s eyes cracked open. He glanced over at the empty cage across the way. Alvin Jenkins was gone. Still gone. Sam didn’t know if gone meant back at his apartment complex sleeping and counting himself lucky or if gone meant dead. Sam didn’t think about the horrible screams that echoed far just after Jenkins ran away. He didn’t think about the screams that punctured the night after that; each one fresh and ripping through the darkness to catch Sam off guard again. He didn’t think about when that cage would be filled again, or with who. And above all, he didn’t consider what would happen to him when he was standing on the edge of lunacy and the lock on his own cage snapped open.

Instead, he thought about food. He thought about when his next meal would come, what it would be. He thought about numbers and facts—repeating solutions and recounting things he’d learned in twenty-two years over and over—it kept the idle madness away. It kept him sharp, and he would need to be sharp if he was going to get out of this alive.

Not that he would need to escape, because Dean was going to rescue him. He thought about that when everything else seemed too hard to cope with. Rationally he knew that he needed to have a plan; he needed to convince himself that he could deal with this on his own. But below that there was Dean, always Dean. Dean would be there the next time he woke up. Dean would have captured every one of those crackpot hicks and the Impala would be parked up close to the barn so Sam wouldn’t have too far to walk, because his legs would be really sore by then. Dean would support him, wrap his arms around Sam’s back and shoulders and walk him to the car. Dean would turn Foreigner on a low hum and look over at Sam huddled in the passenger’s seat; that would let them both know that it was over. Dean would save him or die trying. And Dean wasn’t going to die.

\---

The world was cold when Sam’s eyes cracked open. He blinked. This was different, wrong. This hadn’t happened. Something had changed. In his sleep his leg was itching; he made a move to scratch it. Then there was a sudden hitch and a series of rapid clangs. Sam struggled but started choking anyway. His feet slid against the slick metal floor; he couldn’t keep his balance and his knees hit the ground with a sickening crunch. His head ricocheted off the side bars and his body went limp. As the world came back into focus Sam stayed as still as he could manage. Blood started dripping over his left eye; tears welled with the sting of it.

He flexed his arms—at least as much as he could manage. The chains cut into his biceps even through the cheap burlap. From what he could make out, he’d been fitted in some sort of makeshift straitjacket. The coarse layers of fabric grated against his skin. They had taken off his shirt. Chains—rusted but solid enough to keep him down—circled around and around his chest, looping over his wrists a few times for good measure. His legs were free but it didn’t help him; without his arms his center of gravity was all fucked up. Plus the cage was too short for him to stand up in, and his knees felt like they’d been shattered in the fall.

_This wasn’t right. This hadn’t happened._

He couldn’t breathe. No, wait. He _could_ breathe, but it wasn’t normal. There was a tightening around his neck like smooth, slender hands. He tried to turn his head to one side, see how it felt. It was like someone was strangling him…with a belt. It was a strip of leather—not necessarily a belt but it might as well have been—hooked around his neck, and it was attached to something else. Something was pulling him up, or at least keeping him from falling down.

Sam tilted his head back and something stabbed the base of his skull. He bit off a curse. Letting his head drop with a little slack, he felt his neck sway back and forth. He remembered something. Something bad. He’d been watching the chains that hung over the cages, watching the meat hooks on the end dangle like unspoken threats. He’d wondered what those were there for; he knew now. Now he wondered how long he’d be able to keep the point of the hook from cutting into the back of his head.

_This wasn’t right. This hadn’t happened._

Sam waited. He ignored how the burlap felt like sandstone against his stomach, his chest, his back. He ignored the flecks of rust he could feel working their way under his skin, into his bloodstream to slowly poison him. He ignored the band around his throat and how he knew it was getting smaller, squeezing tighter. He ignored the paranoia, the clots of drying blood in his eyelashes and around his eyelid, the pain in his forehead and his knees that were taunting him to scream. But he couldn’t ignore the thousands of pin pricks running up and down his calves. He never did like how it felt when his legs fell asleep.

“Ugah!” Sam thrashed against the floor and it resonated with a clang. Pain was tolerable, that heavy dead feeling wasn’t. He situated himself again in the farthest corner from the swing door; for some reason staring at that iron latch across the way made Sam feel more vulnerable than before. He had no control. When it opened it opened, and whatever came through would get no resistance from him. Sam prayed to things he didn’t even believe in that Dean opened it first.

Sam waited. Every little rattle and scuttle—mice or rats or God know what else these freaks kept for pets—every lurch of the metal or grate of the bars made Sam practically piss himself. His jaw was getting sore from tensing his neck to keep the belt from slipping tighter. His teeth crushed against each other and he blinked fast, trying to force the blood and sweat out of his eyes. His legs were twitching now, aching with the effort to keep him from falling and choking again. His muscles were going to let out soon and then it would just be a matter of time until he strangled himself to death. Sam thought about how the last words he was ever going to hear Dean say were:

“Alright, I’ll meet you outside. I gotta take a leak.”

_This wasn’t right. This hadn’t—_

A long creak, like a growl, hit Sam’s ears. He froze; every muscle in his body was primed for the fighting he couldn’t do. He didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. The silence burned his ears from the inside out. Then that shrill beep cut through the air and he jumped, the chains clanged as Sam tried to burrow farther into the corner. Sam gasped and sputtered and hyperventilated, struggling fiercely against his restraints. They were laughing at him somewhere just out of sight; Sam could hear their cackling, see the psychotic delight in their eyes. He was playing into their game but it didn’t matter because he was truly terrified. He’d spent most of his life chasing down the things of nightmares and never once had he felt such real terror. It smothered him.

“Shhhhhh!” A dark figure blocked the dim light into his cage and for a second Sam thought it was a little girl. Only—that couldn’t be. He tried to imagine what these people would do to a little girl but couldn’t finish that thought. The possibilities were too sickening. The heavy door swung open and Sam finally looked up at what had been sent to observe his humiliation. He stared at the knotted and frizzed hair that hung around a sallow face. He followed the line of an oversized dress and clunky hunting boots that seemed to swallow the feet inside them. He looked into those glassy eyes and thought he saw something strange, but then they blinked and just stared back at him curiously. Sam had either completely lost his mind or there really was a little girl in the cage with him.

She just stood there—looking absolutely blank—and Sam couldn’t deal with it. His lungs strained against his rapid breathing; the cold, stale air only fueled his panic. His arms shook with the force he was desperately putting into breaking free. He kept blinking erratically and told himself that the next time he opened his eyes that girl would be gone. But it didn’t work.

Her arm reached forward suddenly and Sam let out an involuntary whimper. He thought—for a moment—about explaining to Dean how a little girl got him to piss his pants. But there was nothing in her hand, no instrument of torture to justify his fear. It was just a dirty palm, the size of a child’s, inching closer to his face. He tried to will his body to stop shuddering.

When she touched him it was gentle, almost nurturing. She ran her thin fingers down Sam’s cheek, over his lips. Sam stared at her and she grinned toothily; a tiny part of his mind marveled that she still had all her teeth. Her cheeks flushed as though she was embarrassed and she giggled like a toddler, high-pitched and unsettling. Sam tried to read her expression, grasp her intent.

“You’re handsome.” Her fingers rested on Sam’s lips. “You’re much prettier than most of the other ones we get.”

“W—we?” Sam swallowed hard and tried for a desperate attempt at buying some time, _any_ time.

“Daddy and Jared and Lee, I mean.” She glanced over her shoulder at the emptiness beyond the cage. “Jared and Lee are my brothers, and they all treat me real special. That’s why I’m here.” Something—the closest thing to hope Sam had felt in what seemed like ages—screamed inside him.

“Why are you here?” He tried to keep the optimism out of his words, out of his face. She quirked her head to the side and gave him a lopsided smile. It felt more malicious than Sam thought it should.

“You can relax.” Her fingers grazed his neck along the line of leather. “It’s ain’t gonna choke you unless you do something awful stupid.”

“I don’t trust you.” Sam hadn’t meant to say that. He really shouldn’t be provoking anyone in his current position. But he couldn’t help it, it just came out. She giggled again.

“You’re smart, too. Daddy always says that there ain’t no boys who are pretty and smart, so either you aren’t so smart or you gotta be ugly inside. Which one are you?” She was toying with Sam, he knew that.

“Why are you here?” Maybe he could stall her, confuse her. Maybe he could distract her and get her to tell him something her daddy and big brothers didn’t want him to know.

But she was on to him. She knew what he was doing, or trying to do. And he knew she knew. Both of them knew—or thought they knew—what the other was trying to pull, but neither one really knew anything. It was a game; Sam wasn’t sure about the rules but he understood the goal. He didn’t quite know how to win but he was sure he’d know when he won. The girl knelt on the ground and suddenly she seemed less threatening. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen, skinny and petite—a head and a half shorter than Sam, bound and on his knees.

Her hand trailed across his chest, running idly over the burlap and chains. “You’re big too, like a bear.” Disgust welled in the pit of Sam’s stomach. He ignored it, as much as he could.

“What’s your name?” Sam willed her hand to stay at his chest and not move lower.

“Missy.” She answered offhandedly, too focused on something else—something Sam couldn’t see—to be bothered with looking up. “Is there anyone out there who’ll miss you? You got anyone who you love? Anyone that loves you?”

Sam thought about Dean, he always thought about Dean. Now he thought about Dean finding his dead body—or never finding anything at all. He thought about Dean at his funeral, if Dean would even have a funeral for him. He’d probably fuck the mortician to get one for free. He thought about Dean alone in the Impala, driving to the ends of the earth and back, fighting off everything in the darkness to avoid his own loneliness. He thought about Dean and his dad, and whether they could go on being a family without him. Whether they would be happier that way. Sam thought about how he wished he told Dean, just once, that he loved him.

“No, nobody will miss me. I don’t have any family left. There’s nobody.”

“Sure there is.” Missy looked up at him, her eyes flashed like something crazy. “If you didn’t, you’d have given up by now. Who is it, a girl?”

Sam scoffed bitterly; it wasn’t the first time he’d been glad that Jess had been spared this part of his world. Maybe her being taken from him was all for the best; this wasn’t the first time he’d told himself that. Then again it was easy to be philosophical when he was staring at death in a little girl’s eyes and imagining not having to carry the guilt and blame around with him anymore.

“It’s not a girl? Then another pretty boy?” For some backwoods hick-girl, Missy seemed oddly unfazed by this supposition. But it wasn’t too surprising to Sam, especially if torturing and killing people was what her family did for a living. Sam felt her hand rest cold on his thigh. “My brothers like you something fierce. Maybe you’d like them too.”

Sam shuddered again. He heard that thick cackling just out of sight, saw two hulking brothers waiting with sick delight for their sister to finish with him. He tried to say something defiant but could only manage to shake his head violently. Missy’s giggle tangled with the cackling in Sam’s ears.

“Don’t be so mean. You ain’t even seen them yet.” Sam felt her hand slide back up his thigh and between his legs. His head thrashed now, the belt tearing into his flesh and robbing him of his oxygen. She didn’t move to unzip his jeans. She just rubbed his crotch absently, egged on by the physical response. Sam didn’t want this, couldn’t do anything to stop it. He felt like throwing up or passing out or anything that took him away from this degradation. He felt dirty, the kind of dirty that a week of showers couldn’t clean off him.

“St—stop it.” Between the belt and the fear Sam gagged. His voice sounded distant because he didn’t have the ability to shout anymore. He could hardly whisper. “Stop.”

“Aw, you ain’t no fun at all.” Missy’s petulance was lost when she dissolved into high-pitched squeals. Sam tried to calm his body, tried to regain control of himself.

“Or maybe this just ain’t what you like.” Missy reached one filthy hand into a fold in her dress and pulled out something small and thin. She held it at her side for a moment and Sam’s eyes widened when the blade caught in the faint light.

“Ah! Jesus—fuck!” She was faster than Sam had given her credit for. One second she held the knife motionlessly close to her hip, and the next she was jabbing playfully at his crotch. He started thrashing again, scrambling to get away before she managed to castrate him. The sharp tip poked through his jeans and boxers, just grazing flesh; she mocked him with everything she could do that he wouldn’t be able to stop. Sam’s bare feet searched desperately for traction, but the wet muck on the metal floor just made him slip forward again.

The jabs were getting harder, more violent. His mind started reeling irrationally. Sam was going to die, he had pretty much reconciled himself to that fact. But he would rather that it be over now—that she just slit his throat or something—than draw it out. Already he knew he would be begging for death before he got it. He wondered if Dean would appreciate getting another quest. Another reason for revenge, another thing to fill his hollow life. The echoes of Mom, Dad, and now Sammy. The echoes of a real family. Sam wondered if he’d be a better motivation for Dean when he was dead.

No, no. Between the bursts of pain Sam forced himself to stay together. Dean was going to save him. He might have to go through some hillbilly hell now, but in the end Dean would come smashing through those barn doors and tear off the hinges on this cage to free Sam. Well…more likely he’d sneak the key out of the house and tiptoe in through a hole in the old walls, but logistics weren’t the issue. Dean would raise hell—blaring or silent—for Sam. He always had, always would.

“As long as I’m around nothing bad is going to happen to you.” Dean had said that, and Sam believed him. Sam had to believe him.

Missy’s face was close to Sam’s now. For some reason, the thought of her kissing him was the most repulsive thing yet. But she was grinning again and Sam realized that the sharp pains had stopped. Suddenly her face tore apart and melded back together. A motel room, a lumpy mattress, a short bed. Dean snoring loudly a few feet away.

_This wasn’t right. This hadn’t happened._

“My brothers were awful nice in letting me have fun with you first. But I’m getting bored, and they’re getting restless.” She backed away. Sam suddenly didn’t want her to leave, almost wished she wouldn’t go. He fought the urge to beg—beg that she stay and keep whatever came after her away from him. What had only been horrific figments of his imagination before were now looming in the doorway. Sam could see their yellow teeth and frightening eyes. If he hadn’t been restrained he would have said they looked moronic, but even idiots could hit a stationary target.

“How was he, Missy?”

“More scared than I thought he’d be, Lee.” Missy had become a third shadow, significantly shorter than the other two. “But that’s okay.” She turned back around and smiled at Sam. “I like when they’re scared.”

The brothers guffawed and Missy giggled like it was all some sick family joke. Then the noise stopped, and one of the brothers grabbed Missy by the arm.

“Alright now, go back into the house.” He guided her out of the cage and spoke with his back to Sam. The other one stood, watching Sam unblinkingly. “Pa wants you to help with dinner. You leave this one to your brothers now, Missy.”

“Yes, Jared.” Sam heard the clunking of those oversized boots, and then Jared came back into the cage and shut the door behind him. The deafening clang followed by the switch of the deadbolt filled the barn. Sam had lost the stamina to control his bodily functions, but that didn’t keep him from feeling humiliated as the warm piss ran down his legs. He prayed the wet spot on his jeans would escape the notice of the brothers.

“Lookie here, Lee. Seems this one is so scared he wets himself before we even done anything to him.” The brother called Jared squatted in front of Sam, eyes full of some kind of lust. Behind him the one called Lee laughed harshly.

“And he’s crying too. It’s ain’t no fun when they get all girly on us.” Lee leaned his hands on his brother’s shoulders. Sam hadn’t realized he was crying, which made it a little easier to accept. At this point, Sam let go of all his pride. No one would blame him for crying. Not even Dean. This seemed to make him cry harder and he sputtered to say something.

“What?” Jared leaned nearer. “I can’t hear you when you’re crying like a little bitch.”

“Please, please.” Sam could barely hear himself. “Please.”

“You begging already? Missy was right. You are scared. Lee, give me the gag.” Sam shook his head, his mouth unwilling to voice his pleas. They ignored him. “I don’t wanna hear his whining.” Jared jammed a wad of cloth into Sam’s mouth and tied another over it. The taste of blood and rotting meat filled Sam’s mouth.

“Lee, flip him over.” Sam screamed in futility against the cloth. Lee stepped past Jared and stood behind Sam, who felt a momentary hanging sensation before falling to the floor in a weak mass of chained limbs. He could smell the piss mingled with a thousand equally unpleasant scents collected on the slick metal. The choking pressure was gone—Lee must have unhooked him—but now he was completely unable to support himself. A pair of rough hands grabbed the chains around his wrists and held him suspended, half-bent over and half-collapsed.

“Lee.” Above his head Lee passed something to Jared. Sam felt one of them fumbling with his fly. He started shaking. He told himself that he could deal with what he had to before Dean saved him, but now he wasn’t sure if he'd come out of this whole.

“We want you to be able to walk for…later.” Sam refused to consider a later that wasn’t with Dean and as far away from these monsters as possible. “You can stop shaking like an old dog. There ain’t no use in killing you yet. We’re just here for some fun.” Suddenly Sam’s jeans were torn down his legs. Then his boxers. Sam remembered Jenkins ranting about _Deliverance_ and hillbillies looking for love in all the wrong places. He remembered scoffing at the theories, sure that he knew more about these kinds of things than Alvin Jenkins did. Now Sam wished he hadn’t laughed. He wished he’d listened and believed and he wished Jenkins hadn’t left him alone in this nightmare. Sam wished it was Jenkins—and not him—who was hog-tied and half-naked, bawling like a sissy and playing jailbait for these sons of bitches.

Everything blurred. Something cold and too big was shoved inside him and he bit down hard on the gag. He thrashed around but soon realized that moving only made it hurt worse, only made those freaks laugh harder. So he stilled and decided that the less fight he put up the better it would be for him. Whatever had been pushing inside of him pulled out and he exhaled. Then he realized that this wasn’t the end; it was still the beginning.

“You want him first, or should I take him?” Sam didn’t care which brother was talking anymore. The cage was becoming stifling, like the bars were moving in on him. Between the gag and his tears, Sam was suffocating.

“You can have him first, Jared. After all, you let me have the last one all to myself.” That seemed like all Jared needed to hear. Sam couldn’t help but wail against the cloth as another something—warm and much bigger—rammed into him. The initial shock numbed the searing pain, but after a minute or two it came back with a vengeance. He felt like he was being shredded. Knowing he had to relax at least a little—if he wasn’t going to get seriously injured—Sam took in deep, shuddering breaths. He thought about every single thing that they were doing to him, and thought about how Dean would make them pay for each and every one. Sam had always been the one to keep Dean from real violence, but if Dean wanted to rip the heads off these freaks with his bare hands Sam wouldn’t stop him. For each thrust that threatened to break Sam, he thought about Dean. Dean. Dean. Salty tears burned his eyes and clouded his vision.

_No. This wasn’t right._

He blinked. The thrusting was harder, more frenzied, like some big boar fucking its prey into a rut. The pain came and went like an ebb, along with Sam’s consciousness. He wasn’t blacking out, just drifting away somewhere else. To a motel room. To the Impala. To the ceiling of his nursery. When the pain returned, so did he. To the dankness, the sickening metal and filth. Dean. Dean. Dean.

_This hadn’t happened._

Everything slowed, the world and the movement. Jared must have come—already or finally—Sam couldn’t keep track of the time. He didn’t have long enough to feel sick at this because—though the world still passed in slow motion—that thick and slimy thing was back for more. Or maybe it was Lee now. They were interchangeable; neither one was a lesser evil. Living like Dean and him did, Sam had thought he’d endured almost everything. He’d been horribly wrong.

Now he could feel his skin sticking to someone else’s skin, piss or come or sweat acting like glue. He could hear the slap of each thrust, every nauseating noise that came with sex was amplified here. But this wasn’t sex. Every thought Sam had ever had about sex was distanced from this. This was violence and terror, like being trapped by a poltergeist or attacked by a demon. His muscles were twitching. The pain came like slashes. Dean. Dean. Dean.

_This wasn’t right. This hadn’t happened._

And then everything froze. Hands and fingers and nails dug into his sides as a few short, brutal thrusts came, and then silence. Whatever or whoever had been holding him up let go, and he just laid there. Whether he was pretending to be broken or whether they had actually broken something in him, Sam couldn’t tell. His legs spasmed every few seconds like he’d been electrocuted. Half his face sat in a pool of wet refuse. He kept reminding himself to breathe. Above him, vague and shapeless voices passed.

“Here, give it to me! You’re too clumsy to do it right.”

“No! I can do it, Jared. Just let me try.”

“Fine. But if you mess it up and Pa gets mad, I ain’t taking the blame for it.”

A pair of hands turned Sam over so his wrists ground into his back. Sam stared at two smugly sated faces leering down at him. Then he looked at what they were holding. Some clear liquid glinted in a hypodermic needle. Sam realized that—whatever came now—he didn’t have any strength left to struggle. The needle pricked into his right bicep. He’d already started to fade out when one of the brothers kicked him in the ribs. Then two black shapes drifted out through the suddenly open again cage door, and it clanged shut behind them. Sam waited for the slide of the deadbolt.

Sam watched Dean kneeling over him, holding him, swearing to gruesomely kill whoever did this to him. Sam watched Dean crying for him, kissing him, loving him, cleaning him. Then he heard that shrill beep and blacked out.

\---

Sam was sore and his clothes were damp when he woke up. A plate of cold meat and some stringy green vegetable sat by the door. He wondered how long he’d been sleeping; it felt like forever. He’d dozed off some time after Jenkins had left, still hearing his horrified screams slicing through the night. Ignoring his dirty hands, Sam started shoveling food into his mouth. The vegetable tasted like canned something. The meat tasted familiar, like a faint memory. It was dangerously close to raw, and after eating two and a half pieces without thinking he froze and dropped the half left in his hand. He thought about what this meat might be. He tried not to consider the possibility of it being some part of Alvin Jenkins.

When he heard the barn doors opening again he dropped to the ground and pretended to be asleep. He watched two cloaked…brothers, he guessed…drag a limp woman into Jenkins’ old cage. After they tossed her in and turned to leave, Sam could have sworn that one of them winked at him. A sharp pain ran down his spine and then—as the barn doors closed—it receded.

For no apparent reason, he thought about Dean.

\---

Sam probably shouldn’t have left Kathleen with that man and a rifle. But for some reason he couldn’t quite feel remorse if she ended up shooting him. What mattered now was finding Dean. He ran towards the house, hoping that these rednecks hadn’t left Dean hanging over a vat of hot oil or something.

The front door was locked, and he scrambled around the porch in search of another way in. Through one of the unlocked windows he heard Dean’s voice.

“Cut it out, you little freak! Didn’t your dad ever teach you not to molest strangers?!” Sam peering through the shutters and saw a little girl—she couldn’t have been older than thirteen or fourteen—making what looked like a rubbing motion between Dean’s legs. At least, that was what it looked like with Dean’s back to him. Something horrible settled in the pit of Sam’s stomach.

Then he saw it. The tiny blade caught it the firelight, and Sam remembered something. He couldn’t stop himself. Just like when he saw Dean shot in the head back in Michigan, something came out of him. He screamed and felt like his body was bursting apart. When he opened his eyes, the girl was gone.

“Dean!” Sam crawled into the house, stumbling over extraneous furniture. “Dean, are you alright? Are you hurt?” Sam stopped short at the black and blue and red streaking over Dean’s face. His brother was looking at him like he didn’t quite know him.

Sam stared down at his feet. “Um, what…what happened?”

Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Well, I was being molested by some kinky little inbred girl and then she flew backwards into that cabinet, which proceeded to close and lock on its own.” Sam saw the look of concern in Dean’s eyes. But it was more than concern. It was fear. Fear of Sam. Sam hated that look. He hated that—when he was afraid of himself—the one person he wanted to protect him was scared too.

Dean nodded a little and cracked a cheeky smile. Sam knew it was for him, to let him know that Dean understood even when Sam didn’t. Even when Dean was scared, he understood.

“So, if anyone asks I say we don’t share about the flying girl and the magic cabinet. What do you say, Sammy?”

Sam chuckled softly. “I say my name is Sam.” Dean ignored his answer completely.

“So, Sammy.” Dean looked up at him, waiting for something. Sam stared back, puzzled.

“What?”

“You planning on untying me anytime soon?”

\---

Eleven days later and 1300 miles away, Dean lay awake in his motel bed and listened as it all started again.

This was the third night in a row that Sam had been thrashing and screaming in his sleep. Dean watched him wake up at four in the morning in a cold sweat. Even when he was having his nightmares about Jess it hadn’t been this bad. At first Dean thought they were more premonitions. As unnerving as that idea was, Dean realized now how much better it would be if they were premonitions. These were something else. Dean had been so relieved when he’d found Sam, alive and untouched. But deep down, Dean knew something had been wrong.

Now, listening to Sam’s terrified wails, Dean’s worst fears were confirmed. Those hillbilly bastards had done something horrifying to his little brother. If they weren’t locked up in a Minnesota state prison now, Dean would have driven back to Hibbing and made them paid for it.

Everything had been fine afterwards. Minus another psychic outburst with that freaky little girl and the closet, Sam had seemed normal. They’d headed off for a possible werewolf job in Kentucky—that ended up just being a damn big coyote—and Sam was himself. It wasn’t until they hit Annapolis, Maryland and a ghost ship that this started. Dean tried to ignore it, told himself that it would pass; but he hadn’t had more than five hours of sleep in three days and Sam had had less.

Dean wanted Sam to talk, or do something that gave Dean an idea of what he was facing. He waited every morning—when Sam looked ashamed and wouldn’t make eye contact—for something to be said. But they both were too good at avoiding things that didn’t want to be discussed. Dean could deal with hissy fits or violent outbursts, but trying to fight something in Sam’s head was a talent he had yet to master. Though it wasn’t like he didn’t have enough practice.

After three nights of this, Dean gave up trying to block out the sounds. Now he listened, hoping to learn something. Occasionally he caught a word out of context, but mostly it was just _please_ and _stop_ and _no_.

In his gut, Dean didn’t really need Sam to tell him what had happened. He just knew. He wanted to hit something or smash something or kill something, but suppressed that because it wasn’t going to help Sam now.

He glanced over at Sam’s huddled body, wrapped in covers like they were armor. Something whizzed close to his face. He leaned back and saw the bic pen with the motel logo stamped across it spinning rapidly on the night table.

“Okay, that’s it.” Dean muttered it to no one as he kicked off the sheets and climbed into his brother’s bed. Sam flailed fiercely in his nightmare state, straining against Dean’s arms as he tried to hold Sam against his body. After being elbowed in the ribs four times, Dean pushed Sam flat onto his back and straddled him. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do at the moment, but when all else failed Dean reverted back to their old wrestling positions. Sam was clawing at his tee-shirt and punching his stomach over and over, begging and _crying_.

Sammy was crying. What the fuck had they done to him?

“Sam! Sammy! Wake up!” Dean shook his shoulders, demanding that Sam open his eyes and _look_ at him.

“Stop it! Stop it! Please God, please just stop!”

“Sammy, come on! Wake up! Talk to me!” Dean’s hands bracketed Sam’s face. He fought back his own tears; the last thing Sam needed now was for him to start crying too.

“Sammy. Just open your eyes.” Dean’s face was close to Sam’s now, near enough to feel his shuddering gasps for air. He whispered, trying to calm Sam down. “Just look at me.”

Those brown eyes gazed up at him, watery and bright. He looked so small, so vulnerable. He looked so young. Sometimes Dean forgot that he was only twenty-two.

“Save me.” Dean barely heard Sam; his voice was a broken whimper.

“What, Sammy? Save you from what?” Dean leaned as close as he could, and Sam flinched.

“Please, Dean. Save me.” He started shaking again, and Dean nodded quickly.

Not knowing what else to do, Dean kissed Sam. That was always their last ditch effort. Sex was their connection, their rivalry, their issues exchanged in panting and moaning and sweating and coming. It was their lust, their love and their reassurance. It was their stability. But Sam didn’t need any of that now. He need comfort and trust and Dean always had thought talking was a waste of his mouth’s abilities.

Dean needed to say a million things. He needed to laugh and yell and sob. He needed Sam to know everything, even the stuff he didn’t know. That kiss, feverish and tender, probably didn’t do any of that. But it was something. Dean got off a still-trembling Sam and lay down on the pillow beside him. He stared into those flat eyes and pulled Sam against his chest, rocking their bodies together.

“It’s okay now, Sammy. Everything’s okay. I’m here, and I’m gonna save you.”


End file.
